Pure Acetylene Semihydrogenation over Ni–Cu Bimetallic Catalysts: Effect of the Cu/Ni Ratio on Catalytic Performance

Ethylene is an important chemical raw material and with the increasing consumption of petroleum resources, the production of ethylene through the calcium carbide acetylene route has important research significance. In this work, a series of bimetallic catalysts with different Cu/Ni molar ratios are prepared by co-impregnation method for the hydrogenation of calcium carbide acetylene to ethylene. The introduction of an appropriate amount of Cu effectively inhibits not only the formation of ethane and green oil, thus increasing the selectivity of ethylene, but also the formation of carbon deposits, which improves the stability of the catalyst. The ethylene selectivity of the Ni–Cu bimetallic catalyst increases from 45% to 63% compared with the Ni monometallic counterpart and the acetylene conversion still can reach 100% at the optimal conditions of 250 °C, 8000 mL·g(−1)·h(−1) and V(H(2))/V(C(2)H(2)) = 3. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirmed that the metal particles were highly dispersed on the support, High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and H(2)-Temperature programmed reduction proved that there was an interaction between Ni and Cu, combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations results, Cu transferred electrons to Ni changed the Ni electron cloud density in NiCu(x) catalysts, thus reducing the adsorption of acetylene and ethylene, which is favorable to ethylene selectivity.